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Romance & Cigarettes
MGM


6.8

based on 22 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 8 votes
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FILM:

Illuminata

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R for sexual content including some strong dialogue, and language

Starring James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker, and Christopher Walken

Romance & Cigarettes is a modern day musical, a dark and passionate comedy which tells the story of one man's journey into infidelity and redemption. It is about the hero, Nick Murder, and revolves around the repercussions of his adultery and doomed fascination with the flame haired seductress Tula. For Kitty, Nick's long suffering wife, his treachery is the final straw. With faith in her husband shattered she surprises even herself with the ferocity of her anger as she struggles to cope with his betrayal. It is only through a tragic twist of fate that Nick finally understands the extent of the pain he has inflicted on his family. With time running out he discovers the essential value of Kitty's love and respect. (Icon Entertainment International)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Musical \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	John Turturro
DIRECTED BY:	John Turturro
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 12, 2008 Theatrical: September 7, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	115 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Romance & Cigarettes is the real thing, a film that breaks out of Hollywood jail with audacious originality, startling sexuality, heartfelt emotions, and an anarchic liberty. The actors toss their heads and run their mouths like prisoners let loose to race free.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's the most original picture by an American director I've seen this year, and also the most delightful.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

This is a movie that, off-putting as it can be at times, deserves to be seen and heard in a theater, if only to observe the reactions of others to the hilarious gutter talk coming out of Winslet's mouth.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

There is more raw vitality pumping through Romance & Cigarettes, John Turturro’s passionate ode to the sensual pulse of life in a working-class neighborhood of Queens, than in a dozen perky high school musicals. This is a movie in which a dirty mind is a good thing. Call it “The Singing Id.” Prudes, be forewarned.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's almost unfair to make the comparison because there are so many fundamental differences, but the closest recent movie to Romance and Cigarettes is "Moulin Rouge." The key likeness is easy to spot: the characters spontaneously break into familiar pop songs.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.

Boston Globe Louise Kennedy

A hilarious, touching, and (except for a dip into melodrama near the end) skillful blend of subtle emotional depths and a dazzlingly playful surface.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

But by the end, when Gandolfini and Sarandon sing their sweet, hesitant little duet, it’s clear Turturro knew where he was going all along.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Enthusiastically smutty and lyrical, the movie attempts to capture the way we unconsciously set the emotional moments of our lives to pop music, turning fits of passion, anger and righteous indignation into elaborate musical numbers in our heads.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Romance and Cigarettes is lewd and it's lurid and looks to be a lost pop opera, but it has more vitality than anything else out there.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

If you're game for something different, it's worth a few giggles.

New York Post Kyle Smith

It has cult item stamped all over it, and fans of (severely) experimental cinema might see it as a revelation. Most others will find that watching this movie is like having your senses beaten with a rake.

Variety Derek Elley

Chockfull of ideas and with an irreverence that irresistibly recalls late '60s American cinema, thesp John Turturro's third outing in the helmer's chair, Romance & Cigarettes, alternately shines and sputters.

Village Voice Michelle Orange

The bleakly bizarre, uneven aesthetic and direction that is fluid but not quite limber succeed and fail from montage to montage, with the principals doing a sort of karaoke tribute to the likes of Joplin and Springsteen.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This singing-along-to-the-radio effect has a dingy charm that honors the blue-collar Italian setting, yet Turturro spoils it by turning the movie into a hip star party, with a cast of indie-acting royalty.

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling

With Walken around, hair up high, of course there are fleeting moments of fascinating weirdness, but even then, you're still moderately embarrassed for the cast.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

As the songs pile up and the plot putters along, Romance & Cigarettes wears thin, like a moral for the titular addiction: Sure, there’s the sweet dream of that first drag, but a whole pack’ll do a body bad.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The trouble is that Turturro's reach considerably exceeds his grasp.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

The sad result is a karaoke nightmare. Loud and pointlessly crude, the film takes the disintegration of a dysfunctional working-class family and gives it the song-and-dance treatment.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

the movie comes on as a novelty item, meaning it's so full of disparate parts and so unable to approach coherence, it just sits there and burns out.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Sometimes the actors lip-sync, but more often, they're singing along with the original vocal tracks, trying to out-belt Elvis Presley and Bruce Springsteen, like a cadre of enthusiastic shower singers joining in with the radio. The resulting cacophony is generally harsh and sloppy, and the film follows suit.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Besides being inept, it's also pretentious and boring: an ambitious art film gone horribly wrong.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.8 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a7:
Two separate but intertwined dialectics propel the narrative in "Romance and Cigarettes", a gently provocative neo-musical that makes us aware of our over-reliance on other people's words and music to express love and love-related matters. The first dialectic vies poetry against the hegemony of popular song, whose dominancy can be traced to poetry's transformation to free-verse during the mid-twentieth century. A lot of people think they know poetry; that a poem is supposed to rhyme, people like Nick(James Gandolfini) and Kitty(the ageless and exquisite Susan Sarandon), who unleash their vulgar couplets of doggerel at each other, when the wife discovers that her husband had been unfaithful. The second dialectic vies popular music against "alternative" music. Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love"(a Top-five hit from 1968) plays in Nick's head as he dreams of Tula(Kate Winslet), his mistress. A commercial song is like a greeting card; the sentiment may hail from one's heart, but it's a commodified heart; love as nurture(in the musical number, we see other people using the song as a means to an end), rather than nature(a genuine feeling for another person as expressed in terms of the song's originality and relative obscurity). Alternative music is a commodity, too; make no mistake of this, but Ute Lemper's "Little Water Song" feels more personal, more organic than the Humperdinck smash, which the film illustrates by isolating Tula underwater without any human interference. "Romance and Cigarettes" exquisitely shows us how Tula's love is deeper than Nick's. Although poetry will never again surpass popular song in the hearts and minds of the hoi polloi, Nick gives "The Girl That I Marry" some gravitas by reading Irving Berlin's lyrics as if it WERE poetry, before Kitty accompanies her husband in a cappella style, the song, now personalized by oral recitation, seems more like a sung poem than a commercialized song(the rendering of musical notation is what makes the song a popular art). "Romance and Cigarettes" has a lot to say about how people express love. We don't know how, according to the filmmaker, so we let anybody from George Gershwin("Follow my lead, oh, how I need/ someone to watch over me") to Iggy Pop("I hear her heart beating, loud as thunder/saw the stars crashing) to do it for us.

Rachel H. gave it a10:
AWESOME hysterically funny star casted movie. Bound to be a cult classic. Christopher Walker..YES YES YES!!!! Susan Surandan double yes. Mary Louise Parker...hysterical...Mandy Moore..who knew she was so good? And Kate Winslet steels the show totally AMAZING in this role..she blows us all away. Full of camp.nostalgia....over the top hilarity..a kind of absurd and demented west side story back drop...full of delicious archetypes and yummy stereotypes all in humor and wit. We LOVE IT!!!

Paul S. gave it a1:
Wow - I saw this last night and had to walk out near the end. I could only take so much. This is a Musical. We knew that. Rules for attending a musical: 1) Never attend a musical. This movie is a musical. If you violate rule number 1, see rule number 2. 2) Make sure that the people singing in a musical actually have at least some singing talent. Think: Moulin Rouge , The Sound of Music, Chicago, or even the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Unfortunately, the people singing in this movie displayed no musical talent. I think, in some cases, some of these actors probably have at least some talent, however, no such talent was displayed during the movie. In fact they usually had the actors singing along with other people singing, probably for this reason. It did not work. If you violate rule 2, see rule 3. 3) If it is a musical and the actors have no musical talent, then a least make sure the movie is funny. This was the attempt with this movie. Unfortunately, it was not funny. Now, it did try to be funny. At times it sort of inspired a mild smile - sort of like what you get when you think "gosh, if this were done well, it would probably be pretty funny". You know – like when you watch Airplane III or Porky’s III or just about any other movie that you go to because it’s related to a movie that was actually funny, and you hope it will be funny. But it’s not. This movie tries to be funny, but just falls short. This singing is not funny. The chorography tries to be funny, but comes across more like actors that are trying really hard but have a really bad night at Dancing With the Stars.

Peter A. gave it a7:
While this movie certainly has its merits, it's probably one of those "noble failures" that is great to watch for movie buffs and interesting to see as a film experiment, but ultimately doesn't really work. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time, and some moments actually worked really, really well. Buscemi and Walken fans won't be let down, as they play another variation on their weirdo theme, but fortunately once again to good effect. Winslet really can do anything, and this movie is another great performance from her. And don't get me started on Elaine Stritch! What a hoot. Honestly, if the idea of seeing all these people in the same movie together has appeal for you, you'll probably find much to enjoy. As to the songs, I would have preferred genuine performances from the cast as opposed to them "singing along" with another recording of the song; it made for sort of an amateurish performance, which is maybe what Turturro wanted, but not what I want in a movie musical.

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Romance & Cigarettes MGM

Romance & Cigarettes
MGM